NAPA & Tech Soft 3D

The Challenge

In its over 30 years of operation, NAPA – which is headquartered in Finland, and has offices spanning 10 countries – has become a global leader in intelligent solutions for ship design and operations, helping to make the maritime industry safer and more efficient. “When people think of ‘exciting’ software, they usually think of the latest mobile phone app or something like that,” said Tapio Hulkkonen, Product Manager of NAPA Structural Design solutions.

“But there’s actually a lot of cutting-edge development and ongoing innovation in the world of shipbuilding and naval architecture.” This spirit of innovation is reflected in the continuous evolution of NAPA’s product line, which includes NAPA Naval Architecture for hull form design and ship stability, and NAPA Steel for all aspects of a ship’s structural design.

“Nearly 95% of newly constructed ships each year are built by NAPA customers, so it’s essential to make sure our software is keeping pace with technological advancements and meeting the needs of the market,” said Hulkkonen.

“About a decade ago, we wanted to revamp the user experience and graphics environment of our products, which had become outdated and didn’t reflect a modern CAD offering. That was when we first decided to partner with Tech Soft 3D.”

Powerful Software Components Help Transform Product Line

Incorporating industry-leading technology components from Tech Soft 3D – including HOOPS Visualize for 3D rendering, HOOPS Exchange for data translation, and HOOPS Publish (now a part of HOOPS Exchange) for sharing 3D data in different formats – offered NAPA an ideal way to build superior capabilities and a better user experience into its products.

“We are using HOOPS Visualize for 3D graphics rendering, and the performance is fantastic,” said Hulkkonen. “HOOPS Visualize integrates with our own geometry kernel so that any time there are any changes to the geometry, those changes can instantly be visualized. As soon as you manipulate any curves or surfaces on the ship, you can see what it will look like right away.”

Meanwhile, HOOPS Exchange makes it easier for all of the different design disciplines involved in creating a ship to communicate with one another – helping to catch potential errors early in the design process. “In the shipyard, there are different departments that handle structure design, outfitting design, machinery design, and so on,” said Hulkkonen. “They need to be able to share design information that has been created in different CAD systems, and that’s precisely what HOOPS Exchange allows them to do.

Sharing that information allows them to make sure all the different components fit together properly in the final design.” Further enhancing effective communication and collaboration, HOOPS Publish (now a part of HOOPS Exchange) allows NAPA’s customers to share rich, detailed design information amongst the various project stakeholders – even those without CAD systems. “Very often, there are groups involved in ship design – like the design management, the ship owner, or the ship classification society – who are not themselves CAD users, but still want to have a copy of the CAD model or to see the design in 3D,” said Hulkkonen.

“HOOPS Exchange makes it easy to get that data to those people. The design team can push out data as a 3D PDF, or export it as an HTML file that the recipients can open and view in any web browser, without any extra software.” This capability has been particularly important as the classification societies – the organizations charged with establishing and maintaining technical standards for the construction and operation of ships – have started moving towards 3D model-based approval. “A ship can’t obtain insurance until it has a classification certificate, so our customers are eager to streamline that process,” said Hulkkonen. “Thanks to HOOPS components, our software is positioned to allow them to take advantage of this new trend around 3D model-based approval.”

NAPA is also moving forward with a new product called NAPA Viewer, which has been developed using HOOPS Visualize for Web, a powerful toolkit for advanced 3D web visualization. “NAPA Viewer is a way for us to provide a more lightweight product, compared to our traditional software package that needs to be installed,” said Jan Mattsson, Director Development for NAPA Design solutions.

“It’s perfect for less frequent users with more limited use cases where the power of the full NAPA package is not required. NAPA Viewer allows us to serve a wider audience in the shipyards. ” Mattsson added, “Overall, we’re very happy with our partnership with Tech Soft 3D. We started with HOOPS Visualize a decade ago, and then we’ve added more and more of Tech Soft 3D’s toolkits as time has gone on. That’s testimony to our happiness with the relationship and the value that Tech Soft 3D has consistently been able to provide.”

Industry:

Manufacturing; Shipbuilding

Challenge:

Revamp user experience and graphics environment for industry-leading shipbuilding products - Facilitate collaboration among the multiple stakeholders involved in ship design, including the classification societies that certify ships - Create lightweight, web-based product for less frequent users

Solution:

HOOPS Toolkits support the creation of powerful 3D engineering applications

Results:

Transform product line with gold standard visualization and data exchange functionality, helping maintain leadership position in marketplace - Enable easy translation of design data created in different CAD systems and rapid visualization of ship models with hundreds of thousands of parts - Allow non-CAD users access to the 3D model and associated metadata, streamlining the design and approval process and enabling customers to take advantage of 3D model-based approval - Rapidly develop web-based offering, enabling company to effectively reach new customer segment

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